East Moline Journal; Friday Night High, in the Bleachers

By DIRK JOHNSON, Special to The New York Times

Published: October 20, 1987

EAST MOLINE, Ill.—
''Go!'' shouted an old man in the bleachers, dressed in the orange and black of his high school team. ''Go! Go! Go!''

As the fullback sailed into the end zone, cowbells began to clang and the pounding of of mittens gave way to the triumphant blare of the pep band.

''Touchdown,'' proclaimed the scratchy loudspeaker. A woman kissed her husband, and a little boy slapped ''five'' on his father's outstretched palms.

This was the Big Game: the Rock Island Alleman Trojans against the East Moline Panthers. It was a rivalry with a red-hot passion that professional sports, with all its slick appeal, can only seek to conjure.

Here in the Mississippi River Valley, the youths at East Moline, a public school, and those at Alleman, a Roman Catholic school, often live in the same neighborhoods and go to the same churches. Many of their parents work at the same factories and offices. And at game time, it's not just the players who feel butterflies fluttering in their nervous stomachs.

''Isn't that kid something?'' beamed Ron Perry, a disabled postal worker, elated by the wondrous talents of a teen-ager in cleats.

The fullback had charged through tacklers like the Rock Island Line, as fans here used to say.

But that legendary railroad, which employed generations of workers here, went bankrupt in 1981. And the factories here, which shipped farm tractors on the train, have scaled back or shut down in the agricultural recession.

On Friday night in autumn, however, the fullback still runs as fast as ever. Despite hard times, and perhaps sometimes as an antidote, people here and throughout the Midwest still pack the bleachers to yell themselves hoarse and bask in the glory of their high school heroes.

''It's an up moment at a down time,'' said Rick Fauser, a dockworker who spent most of last year unemployed but never missed a game. ''You might be unhappy all week. But on Friday night, you pull for the team and forget about everything else. And when you watch these guys hit, it takes out some of the frustrations you feel.''

This area is known as the Quad Cities, but determining which are the four can lead to endless debate.

For purposes of peace and practicality, it is generally agreed that there are five cities in the Quad Cities: Rock Island, Moline and East Moline on the Illinois side of the river, and Bettendorf and Davenport in Iowa.

There is no debate, however, over the importance of the large manufacturers of farm equipment here. This region, the home of Deere & Company, International Harvester-Case and Caterpillar, has often been dubbed ''the Detroit of the Farm Belt.''

And with so many farmers facing disaster, the sales of tractors and other farm equipment have fallen drastically. Deere, for example, lost money last year for the first time since 1933.

More than 15,000 workers have lost jobs here since 1980. The unemployment rate stands at almost 8 percent, but does not reflect the large numbers of families who have moved away, people who have given up looking for work, or the thousands who once earned $14 an hour and now work for $5 an hour.

''We hear the country is in the longest economic recovery since the middle of the 19th century,'' said Brian Alm, a spokesman for Deere. ''Around here, we can't imagine that.''

At $3 a ticket, high school football remains one of the cheapest forms of weekend entertainment.

Bundled in heavy wraps against the bitter wind, some football fans came armed with a thermos of steaming coffee and perhaps a spot of something else to help them keep warm.

The experts crouch over transistor radios to hear the play-by-play descriptions, and peer through binoculars to scrutinize the cross-blocking and zone defense. Others barely watch, instead chatting with friends and looking forward to the postgame feast of bratwurst, or ''brats,'' and soft drinks, sponsored by the Boosters Club.

As East Moline stretched its lead to 35 to 14, where the score would stand when the final horn sounded, Dan Montez, an Alleman partisan, uttered a soft surrender.

''It doesn't look good,'' said Mr. Montez, who wore a jacket bearing the name Deere, the company that eliminated his job three years ago. ''But win or lose, there's always next week. And I'll be back.''